The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users by expanding the capabilities of electronic devices and by improving network performance. One area in which there is a demand to increase ease of information transfer relates to the delivery of services to a user of an electronic device. The services may be in the form of a particular media or communication application desired by the user, such as a music player, a game player, an electronic book, short messages, email, content sharing, web browsing, etc. The services may also be in the form of interactive applications in which the user may respond to a network device in order to perform a task or achieve a goal. Alternatively, the network device may respond to commands or request made by the user (e.g., content searching, mapping or routing services, etc.). The services may be provided from a network server or other network device, or even from a mobile terminal such as, for example, a mobile telephone, a mobile navigation system, a mobile computer, a mobile television, a mobile gaming system, etc.
Mobile users are being provided with increasingly easy access to these services via different access mechanisms. For example, users may access network services via 3G in some cases and may access services via a more localized network (e.g., a wireless local area network (WLAN) such as a WiFi network) at other times. Access via a third-generation network (3G) is often granted based on a subscription with the operator of the network or through roaming arrangements made between operators. However, more localized networks such as WiFi can sometimes be accessed by specific access points or hotspots that may either be free or may offer access responsive to user payment.
Some types of services correspond to particular types of traffic and, as may be expected, some types of traffic consume more resources and/or have different protocols for communication and security than others. Particularly for hotspot operators, the ability to block certain types of traffic may enable them to manage the types of services they allow access to via their corresponding hotspot. The decision to block certain types of traffic may, for example, be business related (e.g., to avoid providing free or cheap access to services that are costly to support) or may be based on a desire to ensure that congestion causing traffic is not permitted to ensure a good user experience for all users. Regardless of the motivation, certain types of traffic have been commonly singled out for blocking at some access points or hotspots. Examples of commonly blocked types of traffic comprise virtual private network (VPN) traffic, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) traffic, video streaming traffic, secure shell (SSH) traffic, and/or the like.
Some of the types of traffic referred to above rely upon the user datagram protocol (UDP). There is no congestion control mechanism with UDP. Accordingly, if many hotspot users start initiating UDP traffic for services such as streaming video via the hotspot, the bandwidth of the hotspot may be rapidly consumed. Thus, there may not be enough bandwidth left for other users to search the web or use other applications with transmission control protocol (TCP). Since control over providing allocations of resources to specific users of a hotspot is often costly and requires additional management overhead, most hotspot operators avoid resource allocation control and instead simply opt to block certain types of traffic that tend to be problematic from a resource consumption standpoint. Thus, for example, certain UDP traffic may be blocked and therefore VPN connections may not be possible to be set up, VoIP calls may not go through, and video streaming and other UDP applications may not work either.
Unfortunately, conventionally users are unable to determine prior to connecting to a hotspot, whether the hotspot will allow access to specific services (e.g., VPN, VoIP, video streaming, etc.). Accordingly, the user is typically required to connect to the hotspot and try to access the applications or services desired without knowing whether the services they ultimately desire to access will be supported. In some cases, users may have to pay in order to connect to the hotspot only to thereafter find out, when the services they wish to access are blocked, that the sole or substantial reason for their purchase cannot be satisfied by the hotspot to which they have connected. It may therefore be desirable to provide a mechanism by which some of the issues described above may be avoided.